As Mental Health Awareness Month winds down — and keeping in the theme of our special medical education issue — our CVHEC  “What the CV-HEC is Happening” blog this month presents a community voice discussing how CVHEC members are participating in a unique project that promotes mental healthcare for Latinx families and how mental illness, like other diseases, can be managed: the Bienestar Wellness Early Intervention Program.  Juan C. Garcia, PhD., executive director of the Integral Community Solutions Institute (Community Counseling Services), presents how a two-year $2 million grant from the California Youth Behavioral Health Initiative Round 5 will help reduce barriers in obtaining medical health care; provide a culturally congruent introduction to mental health care in the Central Valley; and provide unique medical education opportunities on partnership with UCSF Fresno and Fresno State.   Dr. Garcia is a licensed family therapist, a professor-emeritus of Fresno State’s Marriage and Family Therapy program, and a member of the Latino Mental Health Concilio. He co-founded ICSI in 2011 to provide counseling services to the unserved, underserved and the inappropriately served populations in the Central Valley by promoting community health through advocacy and wellness of the body, mind and spirit.  

Mental Health Awareness Month:

early psychosis in Latinx families 

Bienestar Wellness Early Intervention Program for mental healthcare

services to Latino and underserved communities includes CVHEC members

BY JUAN C. GARCIA, PhD.
Executive Director — Integral Community Solutions Institute

Stigma is an overwhelming concern when seeking mental health services in any community.  In the Latinx community it is even more of a barrier to services.

Early psychosis in Latinx families is a devastating psychological breakdown of a family member.  In the past, Latino families did not know that their child had treatment options.

However, Latinx families can be educated to understand that mental illness is a disease like other diseases and that it can be managed.  If they wait too long to receive services for themselves or for their children, the mental illness may become so severe that it would be difficult to manage in the coming years. The earlier they receive services the better for everyone.  Prevention education of Latinx families using cultural strategies reduces the long-term severity of this chronic mental health condition.

It is to this end that our community-based, non-profit organization, the Integral Community Solutions Institute (publicly known as Community Counseling Services), has secured funding for the Bienestar Wellness Early Intervention Program to reduce those barriers and provide a culturally congruent introduction to mental health care in the Central Valley.

We are excited to gain the support of the University of California San Francisco-Fresno psychiatry residency program as well as support from Fresno State. Both are members of the Central Valley Higher Education Consortium which is made up of 28 institutions of higher education in its ten-county region.

We hope that soon the news will spread to the rest of the community that you don’t have to suffer  to receive mental health services.  We at ICSI believe in promoting community health through advocacy and wellness of the body, mind and spirit.

The need: services provided inappropriately may trigger more emotional and psychological damage

In California, based on 2019 data, almost four percent of adults were diagnosed with a serious mental illness (SMI) and 7.3 percent of children were diagnosed with severe emotional disorders. In the San Joaquin Valley the incidence rate was 4.8 for adults and 7.8 for children, both slightly higher than the state.

When taking into consideration the federal poverty line, the INCIDENCE rate increases to 8.5 percent for adults with SMI and 10 percent for children with severe emotional disturbance. For the Latinx population, the incidence rate was 4.1 percent for adults and 7.8 percent for children with severe emotional disturbance.

As you probably can surmise, there may be several barriers to mental health access.  Some of them are structural such as distance, location and times services are available.  Even in the schools the sparse counseling available is limited to the school hours of operation. Critical services are not available in rural areas such as may be needed by someone having a psychotic break in an emergency in Mendota or San Joaquin.  To get to services takes time, transportation and availability.

Once you do get to services though, there are another set of problems.  If the services are not provided in a language you can understand, that creates lack of access.

There are many indigenous dialects being spoken in the San Joaquin Valley that originate in Mexico and Central America.  The cultural clashes are inevitable and the mental health issues ensuing shortly after may become insurmountable without appropriate help.  The mental health provider may use interpreters, but many mental health concepts are not translatable creating a cultural and linguistic gap in services. As such, services are provided inappropriately and could trigger more emotional and psychological damage.

Like language, culture has a grammar, structure, and process for effective communication.  The use of familiar phrases based on mutually interpretable  cultural understanding is imminent in these critical cases.  The use of dichos, cuentos, canciones and other cultural understanding components facilitated by familiar symbols and linguistic devices provides the framework for trust, care and healing.

If I see a picture of George Washington cutting the cherry tree in the lobby of a mental health clinic, it does not help me if I am a Latinx client.  If I see the symbol of La Virgen de Guadalupe on the wall or even the Aztec Calendar, I can feel assured that someone here understands me.

Culturally responsive or congruent services are needed to reach the client in language and cultural terms that make sense.

Once Latinx families are informed about what mental illness is, the red flags, and that the symptoms are treatable whether through therapy or medication, Latino families and individuals will feel less concerned about stigma. Families need to know that the sooner they can get their loved adolescent or young adult to mental health services the better the outcome.  Psychotic symptoms if untreated for more than 18 months makes it more chronic and the individual may be unable to recover their full functioning in their lifetime.

And who is going to attend to these needs?            

San Joaquin Valley’s number of practicing psychiatrists is lower than any other region in California including the coast, Los Angeles, San Diego and Sacramento at 6.2 per 100,000, which is nearly half compared to other regions.  (See California Health Care Foundation Quick Almanac 2022 ).

We are heartened that, in recent years, the medical education movement in the Central Valley has picked up steam. We applaud leaders at all levels who are making this happen, and especially those who were central in helping us secure our two-year $2 million grant from the California Youth Behavioral Health Initiative Round 5. The project implements a strategy of the Coordinated Specialty Care (CSC) First Episode of Psychosis Program. UC Davis Department of Psychiatry will provide technical support for this project.

In addition to providing services to our community, the ICSI Bienestar project hopes to provide unique educational and training opportunities for programs in the Central Valley including the UCSF Fresno Psychiatry Residency Program and two Fresno State programs: the Rehabilitation Counseling Department and the Department of Social work.

Our goal would be for these training practitioners to be introduced to individuals and their families, and provide treatment via medication and therapy. Importantly, we hope to guide residents and trainees in getting to know the Latinx community, learning to provide culturally competent services and perhaps develop a long-term relationship for care.

One of the current psychiatry residents, Dr. Cecilia Rangel-Garcia, grew up in the Central Valley and plans to practice in the area. An alumna of UC San Diego (Medical Doctor and Master’s in Public Health degrees), she works closely with her residency supervisor, Dr. Karen Kraus, professor of psychiatry in the UCSF Dept of Psychiatry, to finalize a collaborative relationship  for this project.  (Disclosure:  Dr. Rangel-Garcia also is the daughter of the author and Josie Rangel, LCSW, so she is very familiar not only with the professional medical aspects but also cultural and familial aspects).

Enriched training for the Central Valley

“Training in a specific community, working with an organization that is committed to this specific population which makes up a significant portion of the residents, is crucial in training,” says Dr. Rangel-Garcia. “By working with an organization like ICSI, our training will be enriched and we would be able to take and apply the lessons learned wherever we practice in the future. For me, that is the Central Valley.”

The trainee interns from the Rehabilitation Counseling Department and Department of Social Work, who stay with us for 9 – 12 months, are mentored to see clients under the supervision of ICSI’s licensed professionals with weekly meetings to review their cases. They receive training in multicultural aspects of counseling, counseling skills, hypnosis, ACT, DBT, family structural therapy and Integral psychotherapy. ICSI also accepts internships from other universities such as Alliant.

Together through the Bienestar Wellness Early Intervention Program, we can implement cultural strategies to make a connection with the client and communicate with him/her/she/them thus providing a framework for mutual understanding that facilitates the trust, safety and therapeutic alliance process needed while helping train more healthcare professionals to tackle these shortages we face here in the Central Valley.

This month’s “What The CV-HEC Is Happening” Blog takes a unique look at an unprecedented wave of leadership at five major Kern County education institutions:  California State University, Bakersfield; Kern Community College District; Bakersfield College; Kern County Superintendent of Schools; and Kern County High School District. This perspective is provided by a Kern education leader who has been in the thick of the South Valley academic scene himself for many years including his own stint as KCCD chancellor and interim, Tom Burke who now is the Master’s Upskilling Lead for the Central Valley Higher Education Consortium. Chancellor-emeritus Burke provides a farewell of sorts to outgoing CVHEC Board of Directors members Dr. Sonya Christian and Dr. Lynnette Zelezny and welcomes new board members Dr. Vernon J. Harper Jr., Dr. Steven Bloomberg and Dr. Jerry Filger. The CVHEC blog features perspectives about the higher education community and issues. Submissions are welcome for consideration: Tom Uribes, cvheccommunications@mail.fresnostate.edu.

Unprecedented educational leadership

changes in Kern County

New leaders at largest Kern County educational institutions within one year

By TOM BURKE
Chancellor-emeritus, Kern Community College District
CVHEC Kern Master’s Upskilling Lead

The winds of change have swept over Kern County’s education leadership scene in the past year providing a unique opportunity to review and count our blessings while we look ahead to exciting growth for our region’s academic scene.

From the Kern County Superintendent of Schools to the presidency of California State University Bakersfield, we have literally seen the proverbial changing-of -the-guard at our five largest educational institutions in less than 300 days.

Perhaps the most unique situation was in the Kern Community College District where I had the privilege to serve as chancellor from 2017 to 2021 when I retired. At the time, the KCCD Trustees selected then-Bakersfield College President Sonya Christian to step up into its top position. However, so good is Dr. Christian as an educational leader, within two years she was tapped to step even higher when she was named chancellor of the California Community Colleges statewide system prompting KCCD’s second chancellorship search in 22 months.

Both of the positions she vacated have now been filled and her successors started this week so we welcome them here: KCCD Chancellor Steven Bloomberg and BC President Jerry Filger.

Both will also serve on the CVHEC Board of Directors that is made up of the chancellors, presidents and campus directors of 28 institutions of higher education in the Central Valley’s nine-county region. They will soon undergo an onboarding orientation by Dr. Benjamín Durán, executive director of the Central Valley Higher Education Consortium, and attend their first quarterly board meeting later this spring.

Here is a summary of the new leadership in Kern County, with a link to their bios, and a brief highlight of the outgoing leaders who all made significant contributions toward advancing education in Kern County:

CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, BAKERSFIELD PRESIDENT

Dr. Vernon B. Harper Jr. began serving as interim president when Dr. Lynnette Zelezny retired Dec.31, 2023. Among many accomplishments, President-emeritus Zelezny — the first woman to lead CSUB — will be known for allowing the co-location of a Bakersfield College Outreach center on the CSUB campus fostering a smoother transition for transfer students and leading her campus to be the first CSU to partner with CVHEC’s Central Valley Transfer Project and its Program Pathway Mapper software that has now been adopted by the statewide California Community Colleges system.

KERN COMMUNITY COLLEGE DISTRICT CHANCELLOR

Dr. Steven Bloomberg began his term as KCCD chancellor March 1 after Dr. Sonya Christian became state chancellor for the California Community College System June 1, 2023. Dr. Christian is to be lauded for implementing early college and rural initiatives throughout Kern County as well as spearheading the development of the Program Pathway Mapper software used in the CVHEC Transfer Project.

BAKERSFIELD COLLEGE PRESIDENT

Dr. Jerry Filger reported to service as BC’s 11th president March 11 replacing Steve Watkins and Dr. Zav Dadabhoy who both ably served as interims after Dr. Christian was named KCCD chancellor and later CCC system chancellor.  

KERN COUNTY SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS SUPERINTENDENT

Dr. John Mendiburu began his term as the new KCSOS Superintendent July 1, 2023 replacing Dr. Mary Barlow who retired June 30 after making significant contributions to the local education scene through such measures as the Kern Education Pledge and K-16 Higher Education Collaborative Grant Program that includes CVHEC’s Kern Master’s Upskilling Project.  

KERN HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT SUPERINTENDENT  

Dr. Michael Zulfa began his term as KHSD superintendent when Dr. Bryon Schaefer retired on Feb. 1. Superintendent-emeritus Schaefer worked hand-in-hand with KCCD to expand dual enrollment programs throughout the Kern High School District.

Now it might seem a bit unsettling to see this much change in the leadership of an education sector over the course of a single year. However, several of these Kern institutions had deep benches providing a roster of new leaders to choose from immediately.

In fact, I can speak directly to the KCCD case in which the former chancellor — yes, that would be me – was available to step in and help provide a smooth seamless transition to the new leadership for KCCD. I was able to finally step back into retirement when Chancellor Bloomberg began his term this month (although not quite full retirement as I resume my regional coordinator position with the CVHEC here in the South Valley where I will have the opportunity to continue working with this new generation of Kern education leaders).

Speaking of these new leaders, I know each will provide significant continuity for their respective institutions and associated programs. Without question, they now have huge “shoes to fill.” I am confident that they, like their predecessors, are up to the task and will advance their respective institutions to greater educational accomplishments.

I believe one of the key strengths of education in Kern is that all of the institutions Pre-K thru 16 understand that to be successful in providing outstanding educational opportunities and success we all have to work together and communicate with each other regularly. The Kern Pledge is an outstanding model that provides the united platform needed to help Kern educational entities achieve educational excellence for their respective students throughout Kern County.

Kern is blessed to have had the talented and dedicated leadership who have moved on in the past 12 months but we are moreso blessed to have these fantastic new educational leaders stepping up. I encourage you to meet them and support their exciting visions for each level of education.

See:

Dr. Sonya Christian Named Eleventh Permanent Chancellor of the California Community Colleges

‘Honor of my career:’ President Zelezny announces retirement

Mary Barlow is a schools chief who ‘gets it’

Kern High School District Superintendent Dr. Bryon Schaefer Bids Farewell

Chancellor Emeritus Tom Burke December 16, 2021

Interim Chancellor Tom Burke looks to the future

Recognizing Tom Burke

As students return to classrooms for the fall semester, this month’s “What the CV-HEC is Happening” Blog is a message about the lifelong impact that teachers deliver for their students. It is a reprint of a column by Dr. John Spevak that appeared in the Los Baños newspaper, The Westside Express,  Aug 30. Dr Spevak, who is a vice president-emeritus of Merced College and currently a regional coordinator for CVHEC, taught English in his early career and shares here a recent email from a former student.

The lasting impact teachers have,

even when they don’t realize it

“A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.”

So wrote Henry Adams, a 19^th century American historian. Recently, I felt the impact of that statement. Many veteran teachers, dedicated men and women, will understand the experience about which I’ll be writing today.

Some readers of this column may know that once upon a time, from 1971 to 1985, I taught English and speech at the Los Baños Campus of Merced College, first in a rented building on L Street and then in a facility on Mercey Springs Road. I was fortunate to have many talented and dedicated students of all ages in my classes.

The other day I received an email out of the blue from one of those students, with the simple subject heading of “Former Student.”

“Hello, John,” the email began, “I was a student at the Los Baños Community College Satellite Campus in the early 1980s. You connected me with a tutor who supported my writing and got me started on my college path.

“As an ex-Marine and former high school dropout, I had few academic skills.  I just wanted you to know the long reach of your work. Who knew I’d spend 40 years working with young people, write a dissertation and publish a book? I owe you and your tutors a huge debt of gratitude.

“I am very glad to see you’re still writing your newspaper articles and supporting education through your work. I’d love to send you a signed copy of the book I co-authored. May you continue to enjoy the blessings of profound impact. Dr. C. Edward Jackson.”

Later, when he mailed me a signed copy of his book, Dr. Jackson enclosed a note which affirmed what he had written in his email.

“John, without your intervention, I would not have been able to write a thesis, dissertation and this book. The great thing about being a teacher—you never know the extent of your impact, but you know it’s there. Blessings, Ed.”

I was startled, flummoxed, amazed. For a teacher to get a thank you from a student who was in his class 40 years ago is unusual–although, as veteran teachers can attest, it does happen occasionally.

What’s remarkable about my interaction with Dr. C. Edward Jackson, whom I knew as “Ed” when he was in my English class, is that I didn’t think I had done anything remarkable.

Like other teachers who love their profession, I believe in the importance of good teaching — not only having command of your subject, but also sharing your knowledge with enthusiasm. Equally important is providing support, encouragement and empowerment to students. I saw talent in Ed, as I saw talent in so many other students, and I simply encouraged him.

I believe what I did is common among good teachers at all levels, from kindergarten to graduate school. Good teachers understand the intense responsibility they have. A simple encouraging word can sometimes make a positive lifetime impact. The converse is true, as well. One disparaging word to a student can have a negative lifetime impact.

I must admit that I feel proud of my student Ed, even though I don’t think I contributed much to his success. He moved on from the foundation he received at the Los Baños Campus not only to pursue writing, but also to work with young people and then become the author of an insightful and significant book, as I discovered when I read it.

Soon after getting his email, I received in the U.S. mail from Dr. C. Edward Jackson his book, “Meaning-Centered Leadership,” which he co-authored with Dr. Barbara Bartels.  Soon after beginning to read it, I recognized and appreciated what he was saying.

Leadership has always intrigued me. During much of my septuagenarian life, I have taken note of what makes a good leader and what makes a bad leader. I’ve also concluded there are more bad leaders than good leaders in today’s world.

Reading chapter after chapter, I kept nodding my head and agreeing with Ed (I think it’s OK for me to  call Dr. Jackson by his first name).

Ed’s main idea is that good leaders must ensure that the people who work for them feel their work is meaningful. To do that, good leaders have to engage and empower their employees, while demonstrating integrity, as well as optimism and humility.

Ed and his co-author Barbara go on to say that good leaders must build trust. They need to care about their employees, getting to know them personally by “managing by walking around” and connecting with them. The authors add that showing enthusiasm for what you believe in and acknowledging the contributions of your employees are also essential leadership traits.

I talked with a friend of mine who worked as a community college administrator for 23 years, as a dean and then vice president, a person I consider a good leader. He agreed with every point Ed and Barbara made in their book.

My friend went on to say that following Ed’s advice is not always easy and involves a large investment of time and energy. Getting to know the people whom you supervise also takes time, usually a big chunk of time each day. Building trust can take years and requires patience and perseverance.

Most people in leadership positions don’t want to take that time or expend that energy, because it extends their workday long past eight hours and often leaves them exhausted. However, my friend said, Ed is correct when he writes in his conclusion that “becoming a meaning-centered leader is a grand adventure that you pursue throughout your career.”

As I was reading Ed’s book I noticed that a good leader in business also shares similar qualities with good military leaders, teachers and even parents. We all, I believe, have something to learn from Ed’s book.

What’s significant about Ed’s approach is that good business leaders are not only appreciated by their employees, they’re also good for the bottom line. That’s because good leaders, by empowering their employees to succeed, enable their companies to produce better financial results than bad leaders.

Ed and Barbara’s book reflects these two outcomes in its subtitle, “Skills and Strategies for Increased Employee Well-Being and Organizational Success.” Good leaders not only increase well-being; they also achieve success.

My pride in my former student Ed’s authorial success was reinforced by the endorsement he received from a long renowned author, Tom Peters. Peters is the co-author of “In Search of Excellence,” a best-selling book I read and valued when it was written in 1982. In Peters’ endorsement of Ed’s book, he wrote, “I wish I had written this book. Its message is in fact more important than ever.”

So three cheers for Dr. C. Edward Jackson. And three cheers for all good teachers.

I hope Ed’s email and book remind all teachers of the impact they have on their students’ lives, whether they realize it or not, keeping in mind, as Henry Adams wrote, “a teacher affects eternity.”

See Westside Express columns by Dr. John Spevak.